


Toy Trains

by inanatticinnovember



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Character appropriate homophobic and gendered slurs, Drugs, M/M, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Suicide, Trains, dark and angsty, lots of fucking trains, non linear storyline, present tense (mostly)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-04 14:06:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3070928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inanatticinnovember/pseuds/inanatticinnovember
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trains frequent Mickey Milkovich’s life. In fact, sometimes it seems like they rule him. Always moving like they’re trying to get somewhere, but never getting anywhere at all. </p><p>Or, the one where Ian Gallagher is a drug addict and Mickey Milkovich hates him with a dying passion, but no one really knows why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Toy Trains

**Author's Note:**

> This is a shameless secret santa gift for Nicole (backstreet-gurl.tumblr.com)!  
> The prompt was; "Something fairly dark and angsty, and I'd love to see Mickey bonding with V. And some Mickey/Kev friendship too." I kind of took the 'dark and angsty' part and really ran with it, forgive me.  
> Hope you like it, honey!

 

The trains run by in stripes. They barrel through, disturbing the hair on his head and the jacket on his shoulders, his scarf reaching out like desperate veins. They leave nothing but the smell of oil and an unsettling feeling in his gut that tugs at his lungs every few moments. It makes him feel the ground beneath his feet and wish he were stuck there, a nail in each shoe.

Trains frequent Mickey Milkovich’s life. In fact, sometimes it seems like they rule him. Always moving like they’re trying to get somewhere, but never getting anywhere at all.

Sometimes he feels like he’s a train. Especially the kind that run off the tracks when cars get stuck in front of them. But sometimes not, too, because those trains, the train wrecks, stop in rye fields somewhere, creaking metal turned on its side. Mickey never stops. He barrels. He runs by in stripes, in flying colors. And somehow, no one manages to notice.

It’s Tuesday. His breath fogs in front of his face as he looks for Ian Gallagher. He’s found himself a nice corner against the brick wall, and he leans there as he watches the platform slowly fill up with people waiting for the next train.

He spots the red hair at 8:14 and remembers Mandy yelling in his face.

_“He’s leaving for the fucking army, you dumb shit! I don’t care what he did, I don’t care that you don’t talk to him anymore! You better be there when he leaves!”_

She threatened to do lots of brutal things if he weren’t there, but that isn’t why he came. The bright green eyes are why he came and he can’t stand still, the cigarette passing his lips every other moment. Mandy hangs off Ian’s arm, latched on to him like she’s worried he might float right off the platform like a red balloon.

Mickey could run up to them, grab Ian around the waist, and beg him to stay, beg him to keep his feet on the ground and not be a red fucking balloon. But trains don’t stop to apologize and he watches as Mandy and Ian speak for a moment before they embrace for what feels like eternity, Mandy’s head buried in Ian’s shoulder. Mandy pushes him away after a moment and fixes his collar for him before she’s leaning up to leave a lipstick mark on his cheek. And then he’s moving away from her, towards the train, climbing the steps.

Someone standing next to Mickey, an old ROTC friend, yells Ian’s name and Ian turns.

For a moment his eyes fall on Mickey and they stare. They stare like star crossed lovers.

But Romeo and Juliet died in the end and Ian moves his eyes toward the old friend, waves with a big plastic smile on his face, and ducks into the car.

* * *

_Seven Years Later_

Ian Gallagher’s living room carpet has a dark stain in the middle of it.

“If you try hard enough, you can see the way the dude was laying when they found him,” Ian says all of a sudden, making Mickey jump. He appears in the doorway of the living room wearing a paisley bathrobe, a glass of orange juice in his hand as he crosses over the powder pink carpeting to the stain. He stands over it, holds his hand out, two fingers up to form a gun. He squints as he points at the stain, his wrist kicking back subtly. “Bam, bam, twice on the floor once he was down.” His gaze shifts to Mickey as he points to the wall, the orange juice sloshing in the glass. “Walls completely covered, total blood bath.”

Mickey scuffs his feet and glances at the murky fish tank in the corner, the mass of small goldfish swarming in green water. He bites the inside of his cheek.

“Do you want the smack or not, man? I ain’t waiting for your weird ass penchant for morbidity.”

“If it were really that weird they wouldn’t make movies catering toward a public interested in gore,” Ian points out with a loose shrug, taking a sip of the glass in his hand. Mickey can see the pulp floating in the cup, spinning in slow circles.

 “Just give me the fucking money-- Christ,” Mickey says, waving the baggie he’s got in his hand. The white powder jostles a little, sort of like dry snow. Ian steps forward, crossing the room like some sort of ballet dancer, taking the bag from Mickey’s hand in a blur. His knuckles are pink rings on pale fingers, kind of like trees. He shoves the bag in the pocket of his robe and turns for the kitchen. Mickey can’t do anything but follow, escaping the dark living room into a sickly kitchen, blindingly white like someone had doused it in bleach.

“I just finished Hannibal,” Ian says as he pulls open the knife drawer and lifts the bottom panel. Mickey leans in the doorway and looks at the train cars printed on Ian’s orange juice glass that’s been left on the counter. “By Thomas Harris? A lot different than the movie. They end up fucking in the end. It’s sweet.”

“Isn’t he a cannibal?” Mickey asks, watching Ian pull a yellow package out from the bottom panel of the drawer, sliding open the seal and shuffling out wrinkled bills.

“Uhhum,” Ian mumbles, his tongue peeking out of the corner of his mouth as he counts. “A lot of people think he’s this monster. And he is, I mean, he is, but there’s this part of him…” His hand waves about, drifting away from the money as he speaks. “See, because he had a sister, Mischa, and she was the light in him, but then she died.”

Ian falters, his fingers brushing over the edge of a bill. He licks his lips.

“What, did the chick replace her or something?” Mickey doesn’t know why he’s engaging him, he just wants his fucking money. But no matter how much he hates it, Ian is captivating.

“Sort of, but not how you think. He talks about a tea cup falling off a table and breaking and then coming back together again—y’know, Hawking, and time running backwards. The tea cup _is_ his sister, and if he could only reverse time and bring her back. He wants _her,_ and he can’t replace her, but Clarice makes him feel the same way his sister made him feel, and so he basically manipulates her into filling the void. She _becomes_ Mischa in a way.”

“Kinda fucked up,” Mickey says as Ian passes him the money, his robe ruffling. Mickey thinks it might be silk.

“In a beautiful way,” Ian says, watching Mickey count each bill out with dry eyes. Mickey folds them over and looks up at Ian.

“What about last week, you still owe me,” he says. Ian winces. A second ticks and Mickey’s fists ball up a little. “This ain’t funny, Gallagher, you always do this, try to distract me with your weird fucking Bram Stoker bull shit like it’s going to make me fucking forget—“

Mickey stops when Ian’s knees hit the floor. When Mickey asks him what the fuck he’s doing, Ian’s hands are on his belt, pulling at it frantically.

“Repaying you,” Ian says. His pink knuckles look otherworldly.

“We don’t take favors over money, you fucking faggot,” Mickey growls, shoving Ian away and stepping back, rage welling up in his chest. Ian falls on his ass. “Where’s the _dough_. Hard fucking _cash_.”

Ian stands slowly. Mickey can see the dark circles under his eyes like moon craters. He reaches forward and touches Mickey’s chin briefly.

“Faggot see as faggot does.”

Mickey’s mouth tastes like iron.

“I will _gut you_ if you don’t step off, motherfucker.”

“And who’s the morbid one now?” Ian says, a smirk falling onto his chapped lips.

He’s like a marble sculpture as Mickey violently rips the bag of smack out of his silk pocket. He waves it in Ian’s face.

“You’ll get this when you have the fucking money for it. This cash is going towards the shit you owe us,” Mickey snarls, shoving the bag back into his jacket and zipping it up, fixing his scarf.

Ian’s eyes flicker and then darken.

“That’s not fair, Mickey, I need that,” he says quietly, dilated pupils and bright whites.

“Shoulda thought about that before you became a junkie, my friend.” Mickey pokes Ian in the chest before he starts for the door.

The apartment feels like it’s going to swallow him up. Mickey listens as Ian morphs like a chameleon; cottonmouth to fluttering moth. He falls apart, begging, grabbing at Mickey’s jacket sleeve. Mickey yanks away and opens the door, glancing back at him. “You either pay up or we show up. And with bats next time. Trust me, you don’t want your kneecaps busted. Hurts like a _bitch_.” Mickey slams the door in his face, the wind biting at his nose as he starts off to the next house. He can still feel Ian’s hand on his belt, still smell his cologne and the scent of his orange juice. The anger sits in his molars as he clenches his teeth.

* * *

_Two Weeks Later_

Three years had floated by after Ian left for the military before Mickey saw him again. Mickey can remember climbing the stairs for the first time, knocking on an unfamiliar white door with brass letters that swung when Ian opened it. Pink knuckles and freckles on pale skin like fucking stars. They stood there just staring for too long, and it felt like the universe was expanding for the first time.

You know, the universe went from a size far less than an atom to the equivalent of a grapefruit in a fraction of a second. He can’t remember where he’d read that, but it sounded beautiful. The sonic radiance of expansion.  

“Hey. _Hey_ Mickey, get your head outta your ass and put that bat down before you scare the customers away.”

Mickey jumps a little, the bell ringing behind him as the door to the bar swings shut. He frowns, leaning the bat against the wall. The tan wood is stained red.

“What customers, ain’t nobody in here,” he mumbles, climbing on a bar stool, shoving the arms of his sweater up. Kevin passes him a beer with an eye roll. Mickey’s right though, early afternoon on a Wednesday and the place is nearly empty.

They both look up as Ve slides behind the bar.

“Hey honey, how was baseball?” She asks. She gives him a smile, patting his arm as she passes.

Mickey glances at the bloody bat.

“Fucking Peterson gave me a hard time but I really busted his balls, so we should be good,” he says, running a hand through his hair.

Ve nodded, stopping for a moment, something crossing her mind.

“How about Gallagher?” She asks all of a sudden and Mickey looks up because no one ever mentions Ian Gallagher.

“Which one?” Mickey asks on the whim that maybe she’s talking about a different Gallagher.

“Ian,” she says and Mickey’s face hardens.

“Wasn’t on the list. Why, he still hasn’t paid up yet?” He ignores his breath catching in his throat.

“No, but—“

Mickey jumps up from the barstool. Anger feels like blisters on the skin of his stomach.

“It’s fine Mickey, leave it alone,” Ve says, placing her hands on her hips. She and Kevin watch as Mickey goes for the bat.

“Come on, he’s family,” Kev says, placing his glass down on the counter.

“He’s _your_ family,” Mickey says, slinging the bat over his shoulder. “Doesn’t matter who the hell he is, once you start getting soft. They take advantage of you.” Mickey motions with his hands, running his forefinger over the skin of his neck like drop dead Fred.

Ve rolls her eyes.

“Be _nice_ to him, Mickey Milkovich, I don’t care how old you are, I can still whoop your ass.”

“Thanks _mom_ ,” he mumbles, shoving the door open, but he can’t help but listen to her.

***

Mickey’s real mom died on a Tuesday. He was fourteen years old.

Kevin found Mandy playing with toy trains on the kitchen linoleum, Mickey sitting beside his mom three steps from the bottom. The blood on the floor below the stairs was the same color as Mandy’s shiny red caboose.

Their dad had skipped town. They had nowhere to go, lost in their own home. Kevin knew what that was like, and held on to them so they wouldn’t float away, keeping them close while their family came in and out of their lives in waves.

Kev and Ve had raised them. It was weird and fucked up but they had a family and everything was all right. Sort of.

***

Ian’s apartment is empty.

At least it feels empty. Mickey flips the light switch but the socket on the ceiling is bare. Light from the kitchen casts odd shadows on the ground.

“Gallagher!” He calls into the tiny space. The stain on the carpet looks like a dark eye staring up at him. The tank bubbles in the corner and makes the air smell like fish food and swamp water. “I need your fucking money!”

The carpet scrapes his sneakers as he wanders into the cluttered kitchen. He picks up one of the colored bottles off the counter, swirls it, squints into it, puts it down with and angry puff of air, calling Ian’s name again.

All at once, the house begins to tremble, Mickey dropping the bottle, glass shattering everywhere. It’s almost as if god himself has picked up the building by its frame in his tremendous hands and is beginning to shake it violently in the air. The apartment is an ant in a soda bottle.

Mickey grabs onto the counter, bracing himself as bottles fall to the floor and crack in beautiful colored shards across the linoleum.

Everything settles as quickly as it’d begun.

The first time it had happened was years ago. Ian had pointed out the window when it was over, showing Mickey the train tracks running just beside his apartment. The cheapest place in the whole city that shook every half hour as the L violently streaked beside it. Ian said he’d gotten used to it after a while.

The chain to the kitchen light still swings as something heavy thumps against the hardwood in the next room over. Mickey’s sneakers crunch the glass as he slides out of the kitchen.

Something doesn’t feel right.

He pushes the bathroom door open, the small space empty, a dark ring of grime around the tub. The toilet seat is up and the medicine cabinet is open, the shelves containing a tipped bottle of Advil and an old empty box of band aids. The room feels like it has died. Or something had lived within its confined space for a very very long time.

The floorboards creak as Mickey turns back down the hall, shoving open the bedroom door.

The window is open. The curtains stir worriedly, a blue light filling up every immediate space it can reach. Several items are on the mattress; a spoon, a flimsy plastic tube, a lighter, a syringe. A bare foot sticks out from beside the bed. Mickey forgets to breathe for one passing second before he nearly trips trying to get through the room.

Ian is on the floor. He’s fallen off the bed. His face is blue, the shade of blueberries and he smells like vomit. Mickey can feel himself panicking, feeling for Ian’s pulse, for his breath. His mouth is still; his heart barely beats. Every inch of his body is cold.

Mickey curses. They are trains running off tracks.

Mickey pushes his hands down on Ian’s chest, a messy attempt at CPR, but he knows he isn’t doing it right. He gives up.

The house shakes again as Mickey tries to pull Ian off the ground. The bat is discarded and Mickey has Ian by the shoulders, dragging him down the hallway and to the front door. His head spins as he mumbles incoherently to Ian, telling him everything is going to be okay.

Mickey gets him on the front step and manages to sling him over his shoulder. No one is on the street, Mickey ducking under an overpass and slipping through alley ways. He’s pretty sure the angry tears on his face have gone by the time he pushes the back door to the Alibi open.

“Kevin!” Mickey shouts, Ian’s body feeling like bricks in his arms as he drops him to the floor of the office.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Ian wouldn’t last a day in jail. He can’t take him to the fucking hospital.

“Kevin, fuck!” Mickey calls again, his voice cracking as he starts making compressions on Ian’s chest again.

“Jesus Christ.”

Mickey turns his head to see Kevin in the doorway. Ve is behind him.

“Don’t just stand there like the statue of fucking liberty, do something!” Mickey shouts. Ve pushes past Kevin, dropping to her knees beside Ian. She brushes Mickey away from Ian and tilts Ian’s head back, giving him two breaths before moving to compress his chest.

“He fucking OD’d. I--I didn’t see it, but all of his shit was on the bed, the needle and everything,” Mickey says as he moves back, leaning against the desk, his eyes wide. His hand brushes Ian’s.

“Kevin go into the cabinet in the living room, I need a syringe, the bottle of epinephrine, and a sanitation wipe, _go_ ,” Ve says, not looking away from Ian’s face. Kevin bolts out of the room. “Mickey get me a sharpie out of the desk.”

Mickey stares at her for a moment before he stumbles to his feet, blindly pulling drawers open, grasping a sharpie in sweaty hands and giving it to her. She’s already begun pulling at the buttons on Ian’s shirt, exposing his chest.

“What--what are you doing with the marker? This is, fuck this is like that shit in Pulp Fiction,” Mickey says, dropping down beside her. “You’re going off a fucking movie made in the nineties?!”

“It’s an outdated technique, but it’s all we have. Mickey, please calm the fuck down,” she says.

Kevin is in the doorway again, his face flushed from running through the cold.

“We didn’t have any of those medical napkins so I got a baby wipe,” Kevin says, passing it to her. Ve shakes her head, wiping Ian’s chest thoroughly with the baby wipe. She takes the marker, running her hands over Ian’s chest, counting ribs and moving her finger over, placing a black dot on his chest.

“Shit, Pulp Fiction?”

“ _Shut up!”_

Everyone holds their breaths.

“There were three problems with Pulp Fiction. One, Mia Wallace’s chest wasn’t clean, she would have contracted an infection,” Ve says as she unscrews the Epinephrine and opens the sterile needle. “Two, they used way too much adrenaline.” She slides the needle into the liquid, drawing out a half a milligram, dropping the bottle beside her. “Three, it’s almost impossible to hit the heart if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“And you do?” Mickey asks. His bottom lip is shaking violently.

“Not really,” Ve says, raising the needle upward, holding it with both hands. Mickey barely has time to look away before she’s straining her body, slamming the needle downwards.

There’s a gasp and when Mickey turns back to look, Ian is sitting straight up with a needle sticking out of his chest. Ian sputters, thrashing uncontrollably, his eyes wide and wild. Mickey grabs his arm to steady him, the two of them looking at each other.

Things are blurry. Kevin leaves to continue working the bar, Ve takes the needle out of Ian’s chest, bandages it, and tells him to stay awake for a while. She leaves then to get him some water.

For a moment it’s quiet. Ian stares at his hands in his lap. Mickey stares at Ian’s fingers too, but only for a second before he’s pulling himself to his feet.

Ian grabs his arm. When Mickey meets his gaze again Ian has tears in his deep green eyes. Mickey slides back to his knees.

“Hey, don’t… don’t cry,” Mickey mutters, letting Ian hold his wrist. Ian chews on his chapped bottom lip, the skin tearing and leaving little pools of blood on the pink skin. The pools of water in his eyes deepen and he leans forward.

Mickey catches him.

He holds Ian against his chest and wonders if the train is going to settle now.

***

_The Next Morning_

“We’ll have to make the bed upstairs,” Ve says to Kevin as Mickey walks into the Alibi.

Mickey takes a seat at the bar. 

“For who?” Mickey asks, watching as Kevin cracks an egg in a beer for him.

“We were talking about letting Ian stay here for a couple of days.”

Mickey stops, his beer in midair.

“No fucking way,” he says, every inch of him bristling. He feels like his throat is swelling up every time someone mentions Ian’s name. “We’re sending him back to his apartment, he owes us, we can’t just let him stay here.”

“What’s up _your_ ass?” Kevin says.

“Nothing, I just don’t think we should harbor our fucking customers. We’re drug dealers, not a fucking halfway house.”

“Don’t make me slap that mouth off of you, Mickey Milkovich,” Ve says, leaning on the counter to look at him. Mickey rolls his eyes. “I just want to give him a place to stay while he recovers, we have to watch him for infection.”

“That’s not our job,” Mickey mumbles, rubbing his face.

“Of course it’s our job, Mickey, how many times do I have to tell you he’s family.”

Mickey stands up at that, grabbing his beer and downing it in one go. It sloshes in the glass.

“Fucking fine, but I ain’t taking care of him,” he says, dropping the glass on the counter and heading for the door.

“Mickey—”

But he’s already out the door. He gets half way down the street before Ve is calling his name, grabbing him by the back of his jacket. The air is cold and their breath fogs in front of their faces.

“What’s the matter with you?” she asks him. Mickey starts walking again, his nose red. “Mickey, answer me. You’ve been acting like a freak about Ian for the past two weeks.”

“Leave me alone, Ve, I’ve got shit to do.”

“I don’t care how many shits you have to do, I’m talking to you!”

Mickey stops in the street and turns around.

“You always fucking do this, you’re not my mom, Ve. You fed me for a coupla years but we ain’t blood. Stop trying to get up in my business.” He tries to turn away again but Ve grabs his arm firmly.

“You’re not like this Mickey, I know you’re not. This isn’t you. What did Ian Gallagher ever do to you?”

Mickey’s nostrils flare and he yanks his arm away.

“Who gives a shit?” He asks and turns, walking away this time.

***

They’d grown up together.

Mickey had seen Ian every goddamned day for a whole year when they were thirteen.

And then a Tuesday in May.

***

Ian sleeps the whole day.

By the time Mickey makes it back to the Alibi, Ve has gone upstairs to give him something to eat and to tell him he has a place to stay.

Dust has settled, the circus gone, and things might be okay again, but the moment is brief.

“I don’t need your help!”

Everyone in the bar looks up. Ian crashes down the steps from the upstairs apartment, red in the face as he finishes buttoning his shirt. Ve is calling for him from upstairs, but Ian ignores her, crossing to the door and pulling it open. He isn’t wearing any shoes.

“Ian, please!”

Ve is at the bottom of the stairs, but Ian has already slammed the door behind him.

Ve heads straight for her coat.

“I’ll get him,” Mickey says, stepping off the bar stool.

“What?”

“I’ll get him.” And Mickey doesn’t know why, but he’s out the door before he can stop himself.

It’s beginning to get dark. The snow is falling in sheets, clinging to every inch of his body. The cold makes his chest ache. Or maybe it isn’t the cold, but it doesn’t matter.

Ian is already a block away, stumbling as he runs across the street in front of an angry car. Mickey follows him for a long time. He doesn’t start sprinting until Ian falls to his knees beside an alley way.

Mickey curses, closing the distance between them--“What the hell is wrong with you?” --and he’s grabbing Ian by the arm and hauling him to his feet. And then all of a sudden they’re stepping into a Chinese restaurant. Things seem to pass in cut up movie clips.

The sun has gone down completely. The Chinese place is small and smoky and dim. The menu sign lights the room up in purple and green. Mickey sits Ian down at one of the small square tables. The table top is yellow and cracked and looks the color of vomit in the strange light. Mickey ignores the dirt in the corners and the sleeping man behind the cash register.

“What are you doing?” Ian’s voice is shot and his hair is greasy.

“I’m trying to help you, what does it look like I’m doing?” Mickey says over the table, rubbing his eyes. He can’t look at Ian for more than a few seconds at a time.

“Why would you help me?”

Mickey doesn’t know the answer, that’s the fucking problem.

“Kev and Ve want you to be safe.”

“Kev and Ve want a lot of things.”

Mickey watches Ian chew at the corner of his lip. He’s done it so much that a scab has formed.

“Are you going to order?” They both jump and turn to see the sleepy man at the counter staring at them through his thin wire framed glasses. His nose is swollen with age.

“We’re just getting out of the cold,” Ian says.

The man nods back to sleep. Ian scratches at the train tracks on his arm through his shirtsleeves.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Ian.”

“You wanna see? Since you’re so fucking interested in me lately?”

“Fuck off.” Mickey’s mouth tastes like metal. “Don’t fight with me, alright? Just come back to the bar.”

“Since when do you care about me, Mickey? Since when do I matter to you?”

“Don’t do--“

“Since _when?_ Since my death was almost on your hands? Or was it before that, huh? Was it when-“

“Shut the fuck up, Ian.”

“Or do you just not care about me at all? If that’s the case, then I’ll just go home.”

“Would you stop putting fucking words in my mouth, if I wanted them there I would have said them myself-- Ian? Don’t-- what are you doing?”

But Ian has already risen to his feet. He shakes his head as he starts for the glass door.

Mickey’s heart is racing. Every time he looks at Ian’s face he gets angry and every time he looks at Ian’s bony pink fingers his head spins.

Ian’s back as he heads for the door is the worst thing to look at and Mickey jumps up, chasing after him.

“Leave me the fuck alone, Mickey,” Ian says, shoving his hands into his pockets, and there’s only one way Mickey knows how to get Ian to listen to him.

Mickey grasps his wrist, pulling him around, Ian’s bare feet scraping the frozen sidewalk. He grabs Ian’s face and brings him downwards and he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing just that it feels right when their lips touch.

***

They had promised they would meet under the train tracks near Karen Jackson’s house. Mickey sat there leaning against a pillar for almost a half hour, but that was his fault. He’d gotten there early.

Ian was just on time.

He sauntered up the street, all thirteen years of boyish charm, flopping down in the dirt beside Mickey.

Their shoulders touched and they smiled as Ian put a soda in Mickey’s lap. It was a time when Mickey drank Mountain Dew more than he tossed back a beer.

They talked about things thirteen year old boys talked about and not about drugs or who was your family, and who wasn’t. Who you fought for and who you didn’t.

“Hey, you got something—”

But a train was rumbling by above them and Mickey couldn’t hear the rest of the sentence. The sound of the wheels on tracks; the roar like a storm came over everything as Ian reached to rub the dirt off the corner of Mickey’s mouth. The sound dissolved away the noise that Mickey made when Ian leaned forward and their lips touched and everything felt right for the first time.

***

The walk to Ian’s apartment felt like a cross country trip. It was only a few blocks. Mickey forgot about Ian’s red raw feet when they made it inside and the two of them were kissing again.

It stops feeling right at some point but Mickey doesn’t notice because everything is need and nothing is want.

Ian’s room is cold. His bed is sad. Mickey’s shoulders digging into the mattress are less charming than he thought they would be a thousand years ago when he was young and dreaming about what Ian would look like without a shirt on.

The train roars outside Ian’s window and the house shakes, but no one notices trains at times like these. No one cares about cars full of people or tracks lined up in neat rows. No one cares about the contradiction between the order and continuity of the neatly laid tracks and the reckless speed of the train.

There is a good amount of forgetting going on.

“I love you,” someone says on accident.

“Fuck, I love you too.” And that one might be on purpose.

It’s still snowing when Mickey finds himself staring out the window, feeling like he’s a the train wreck, stopped in rye field somewhere, creaking metal turned on its side.

***

They are in a car all to themselves. The walls are white and gold and the floor is carpeted red. Ian tosses the ball at him and Mickey catches it. They throw it back and forth, the red stitching feeling good in Mickey’s hand. He barely notices that Ian is wearing his old T-Ball uniform, the word _Vikings_ written across the front in sloping blue letters.

They stop and drink Mountain Dew and eat cherry popsicles. They watch pine trees pass outside. No one can touch them. They’re invincible.

“You okay?” Ian asks.

“Yeah,” Mickey says and he feels very small, but that doesn’t bother him.

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

Ian sighs and digs into his pocket. He pulls out a tiny toy caboose. It’s as red as the color of the blood on the stairs.

“I’m sorry.”

Mickey looks up and Ian is thirteen with a bruise on his left eye and a split lip and he doesn’t have his own voice anymore. He has the voice of Mickey’s mother.

“I’m sorry baby. I’m so sorry.”

“You’re not fucking sorry.”

The voice that comes from Mickey’s mouth is wrath. It is the seven princes of hell all at once. It is his father’s.

“You’re not sorry, it’s all your fault. Everything is your fault.”

***

Mickey bolts upright in bed. Blue morning light falls through the window and makes the room seem colder than it is. Someone is sleeping beside him but Mickey feels completely and utterly alone.

This is reality.

Mickey sits in a dirty bed in a dirty room next to a dirty boy with train tracks on his arms. He feels like he can’t breathe. The room echoes around him. He pulls himself from the bed and finds his shorts. The door is too daunting so he pulls on his hoodie from the floor and slides the window open.

The window lets him on to the roof which is close enough to the train tracks that if he gets far enough to the edge he can jump across. A man walks along the street alone. The apartments across from him are blank. His breath looks like smoke as it leaves his mouth. He wants a cigarette.

He could watch the trains go by if he really wanted to.

***

His mom used to bring him to the train tracks. The real ones, not just the L.

They would sit on a green mesh bench and count them. He would ask where each train was going and she would say;

“I don’t know, but I wherever it is, I wish I was going there.”

Mickey didn’t know why his mom was so sad but he wanted to go with her to wherever the train tracks ended.

***

“Aren’t you cold?”

Mickey jumps and turns to face the window. Ian is leaning in the frame, looking up at him.

“You’re supposed to be asleep.”

“I’m awake now, asshole.”

Ian climbs out onto the roof wearing sweatpants and a striped sweater. He hands Mickey a cigarette. They stand side by side and smoke.

Ian finishes his cigarette and moves to the end of the roof, jumping from it to the edge of the tracks. He moves from the outer edge to one of the rails, balancing on it precariously, his arms out like a bird.

“What are you doing?”

“Precariously walking the line between life and death.”

Mickey swallows.

“Don’t give me that fucking college kid bullshit. Get down, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

“I’ve done this a lot.”

“Where the fuck are you gonna go if a train comes?”

“Do you even care?”

Mickey stops. He could see Ian standing there, alone, waiting for a train to come.

“Are you--“

“I don’t have a death wish if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s just comforting up here.” He pauses. “You think I want to kill myself, don’t you? Because I think you don’t love me? That’s a dumb thing of you to think.”

“No, I--“

“If I were going to kill myself it would be because people ignore me all the time. And when I do something loud enough, all anyone ever does is try to tell me how to fix everything. I don’t really want to do that anymore. But that doesn’t mean I want to die. I’m just tired.”

“I’m listening to you.” Mickey feels odd speaking.

“What?”

“I’m not ignoring you, I’m listening.”

Ian looks at him for a minute.

“You’re never going to forgive me, huh?”

“What?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about.” Mickey flinches. “And it’s funny because I didn’t even really do anything. And you’re putting it all on me. It was your fault. But you aren’t going to let yourself believe that. You’re going to say it was my fault. You’ve been doing that for twelve fucking years."

***

“Everything is your fucking fault! Don’t tell me your fucking sorry, you crazy bitch!”

“I don’t understand! I don’t understand!”

Mickey held his hands over Mandy’s ears. Mandy held the caboose in her hands.

“I found him and that fucking red head from down the street. He probably ain’t even my son, you whore!”

“Terry, for god’s sake, he’s your son, stop--“

“Well, you fucked him up! You gave me a fucked up son!”

“Our son is beautiful, Terry! He is _perfect_ , don’t you dare--“

And the stairs. The sound of 150 pounds falling down to the bottom. If Mickey thought hard enough it almost sounded like the trains they watched together.

***

 “We’re twenty five Mickey, get the fuck over yourself.” Ian shakes his head. “You know who killed your mom? Your fucking dad. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t you. It wasn’t _God_. It was your dad. And that’s it.”

“Shut up.”

“You’re so afraid of the truth aren’t you? Well that’s it, the fucking truth.” Ian jumps back to the roof. A pebble rolls off and falls to the road below.

All Mickey wants to do is punch a hole in the wall. Or maybe in Ian’s face.

“I’m gonna go find some coffee and then I’m gonna get some smack, and when I get back you better not be here,” Ian says and crouches down to climb out of the window.

“Ian, wait.”

“Since when does Mickey Milkovich tell me to not get out of his hair?”

Mickey looks up at the ceiling that is the sky.

“That’s not why… I… It’s not your fault, I know it’s not your fucking fault, you think I’m fucking stupid?”

Ian has stopped moving, staring at his fingers on the windowsill.

“Jesus Christ, _you’re_ the idiot if you really believe all that bullshit. My mom’s dead and I can’t change that, yeah. And maybe that was your fault, maybe it was mine, who knows? Who cares? It’s done. I just… I just can’t see it happen to anyone else. I can’t see it happen to Mandy. I can’t see it happen to you.”

“Your dads not around to hurt anyone anymore Mickey.” Ian stands up then, looking at Mickey who won’t look at him back.

“No shit. But there are a lot of people like him. And I’m fucking broken, so--“

Ian punches Mickey in the face.

Mickey reels back, reaching up to grab his jaw, cursing at the top of his lungs.

“You are _not_ broken,” Ian growls before Mickey can say anything. “You are _not_. You’re a piece of fucking work, but you’re not broken. You don’t have the luxury of saying that and giving up.”

“Who said I was giving up?”

“You said it. You said it when you fucking pushed me away. You said it when you didn’t say goodbye to me when I left for the army. You said it every time you walked out that door without saying you were sorry.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What was that?”

“I said I was _sorry_ , okay?”

“You’re not fucking sorry.”

Mickey has heard that before. It fills him with rage and he grabs Ian’s collar, pulling him violently forward.

“I. Said. I’m. Sorry. And you better fucking believe that.”

Their noses are an inch apart.

“Prove it, then.”

They stare at each other then. And they don’t look away this time, because they aren’t Romeo and Juliet. They are Archilles and Patroclus. They fight for each other. And it doesn’t matter if Patroclus dies in the end. Everyone’s gotta die sometime.

***

You can’t fix everything. But you can help people clean themselves up.

Ian walks out of the hospital with a smile on his face and they take the train home and they’re okay. They’re _okay._

***

_Sometime in the Near Future_

“This is a fucking shit hole,” Mandy says as the five of them stare at the attic.

A for sale sign sits outside the Milkovich home. It feels disgusting standing there in that attic. But Ian is holding his hand.

“Were you expecting a field of flowers?” Kev says as they start moving to go through boxes.

“Honestly, I’m just glad there isn’t any bodies.” Ve bends to join him.

They rummage for hours.

“Hey, look.”

Mandy kicks his shin and Mickey turns his head up to see her holding an old red caboose.

“It’s my old trainset. What is it, like twenty years old?”

It’s just the two of them now. Ve and Kevin have left to open the bar and Ian is napping on the couch downstairs.

“Throw that the fuck away.”

Mickey looks at her deeply.

Dust settles. Trains crash in rye fields.

Mandy frowns. She looks at the caboose. She swallows.

“But I loved this thing.”

“Just…just toss it, okay? It’s old as shit anyway.”

Mandy holds it out to Mickey. Mickey picks it up out of her hands. He thinks of passing pine trees and green mesh benches as he drops the caboose into a Glad trash bag and ties a yellow knot over it.

Toy trains are for children. He no longer has time for them.

**Author's Note:**

> mickeyslegs.tumblr.com
> 
> Image Credit ([x](http://flophousemissionary.tumblr.com/post/106635391991/riverofbones-vintage-blog)) ([x](http://flophousemissionary.tumblr.com/post/104956769831/riverofbones-vintage-blog)) ([x](http://flophousemissionary.tumblr.com/post/80477315820))


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